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Looking for a graphics program

Hi, I wanted to try and learn some sort of graphics program like Photoshop so that I am able to design my own logos and make them look really good.

I wanted some advice on what program is the best to learn? I have heard of GIMP which is free but I want a professional one which would have some standing if ever I was looking to be employed by someone. I could say I am more than capable in Photoshop for example, which they are most likely to embrace. If I was to say the same thing about GIMP I think they would not be so impressed.

It's not really about the tool you use, it's more about the ability to produce the end product to the quality that is expected, whether you use GIMP, Photoshop, CorelDraw, PhotoPaint, even Maya, it's all irrelevant.

Studios tend to use programs specific to the needs for the end product. Here's a simple breakdown:

Gimp: Free, and good, but very limited.

Photoshop: Used to manipulate photos, people use this for graphic design in its entirety and I wholly disagree with this use. Fancy effects, graphics, certain elements, but only for elements and photo retouching. Excruciatingly slow and resource intensive on large projects. Outputs overly large files. If you save any pngs, use tinypng.org, to shrink them down.

Fireworks: Best for web products - simpler effects, and more accurate, with vectored rasterised output and it creates significantly smaller project files. Fast and nimble, works great for web.

Illustrator: Usable for one page, maybe two page projects, or compositions. Fancy effects on text are usually imported and placed within a compound or clipping mask. End file is usually small, with a bunch of supports. Bad for text-based and print solutions that do not involve a die cut. Fast but poor when handling a large amount of type.

InDesign: Great for managing large print projects, bad for web. Filesizes are small, and it has a great package utility which allows end users to send a project and have InDesign do the leg work and gather all the fonts used and images in a structed way for the printer. It's fast. And great for type. Easy to use even in an advanced way. Very familiar to Word.

CorelDraw: You won't get much brownie points with this, I'd veer away, however some print studios do use this, but it's a bit of a botch job tool.

QuarkXPress: A dead tool. Overpriced and outperformed by InDesign, it's rarely used as a tool of choice.

PhotoPaint by Corel: Good, but just for that, it's best used for paint/creative and imaginary results. Not much more.

Maya/SoftImage/3DSMax: Not used for any of the above. 3D compositions, and very hardware resource intensive. You'll need to know your algorithms for this too.

Users who have thanked evo for this post:

Thank you very much for your analysis on the products. Considering what you have said, it would seem Fireworks would be the best tool for me, taking into account the fact I only want to learn how to create my own website logos.

I want to add some effects to the logo. I'm not looking to create really fancy logos, just maybe add some effects so it doesn't look like something out of Windows Paint.

Thank you very much for your analysis on the products. Considering what you have said, it would seem Fireworks would be the best tool for me, taking into account the fact I only want to learn how to create my own website logos.

I want to add some effects to the logo. I'm not looking to create really fancy logos, just maybe add some effects so it doesn't look like something out of Windows Paint.

Well, as evo correctly said, it’s not so much about what tool you use but what you are able to achieve with it. The best graphics program is of no use if you aren’t skilled and have some sort of talent.

That said, while I’m an avid Fireworks user and would always recommend it over any other program for doing web design, I do think for serious logo work Illustrator might be better suited because of its advanced vector abilities. But on the other hand, you can also create beautiful logos with Fireworks if you’ve got the skills. It’s really when you notice that Fireworks doesn’t meet your requirements anymore because you have ideas that require more advanced techniques that you’d need to switch.

Users who have thanked VIPStephan for this post:

Thank you very much indeed. Those links will be very useful for me. I really want to study this area of expertise so that I can create more attractive logo's, which in turn will make my sites a little more easier on the eye!